


in the night it got you

by AslansCompass



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depressed Sirius Black, Depression, Gen, ownvoices, ownvoices depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26029777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/pseuds/AslansCompass
Summary: He still eats and drinks. He breathes and bleeds. But he's not alive. Sirius Black died the day they cast him into Azkaban.(Character study of Sirius's depression)
Kudos: 7





	in the night it got you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bastille's "Weight of Living"

Colors were the first to go. At first Sirius thought it was merely a side effect from transforming so often; his animagus form couldn't see colors at all. And everything in the cells was so drab to begin with.... Only after he'd escaped, lying on the beach, coughing up seawater and sand, did he see the grey sun shining on the grey waves and understand.

The Kiss was just the expedited version. No one actually lived in Azkaban.

He still eats and drinks. He breathes and bleeds. But he's not alive. Sirius Black died the day they cast him into Azkaban. He swears never to tell anyone the truth. Hard enough to pretend, to force one foot in front of the other. 

He'd suspect a poorly cast _imperius,_ but the very thought was proof otherwise.

Maybe it will get better, he'd told himself. After escaping. After clearing my name. After getting a job. After--

but no, it won't. There's no cure, no resurrection. No secondhand shop for souls.

Every moment reminds him, a nail pounded into the invisible coffin. 

_Dead._

_Dead._

_Dead._

He knows he's dead because: 

Every spell, from a first-year 'lumos' to NEWT-level potions, is like opening a rusty lock with a broken key. 

He can no longer tell if the void in his chest is hunger or despair.

It takes an hour to eat a bowl of cereal, spoon left halfway to his mouth.

Every minute is a century; the time between breakfast and dinner is no more than a blink.

He's sweating and burning, but he'll never be warm again.

If he had been alive--if the Dementors had left the smallest sliver of hope in his heart--it would have been his godson.

Harry.

Harry, the only person he could still save. The only unbroken one, untouched by war.

> (but Harry is an orphan, Harry is an outcast, Harry has been hurt)

He'd first seen his godson (seen and not been seen), one late summer evening. After all those years, his first sensation was not joy or surprise. It was desperation. **I won't lose him too.**

(He didn't know then that Harry had already been lost, that the preteen expected nothing from adults but ignorance and neglect. And what could Sirius say to counter that belief? A dozen years of unfulfilled duties destroyed any credibility he might have had.)

He hadn't feared the Kiss that June night, because fear depends on loss, and what more could he lose? Even his duties--even saving Harry--(because he loved Harry, or as close as he could), still, all that--

he can't speak of it, least he pass it on. Like Lupin's lycanthropy, one careless word would tear away the civilizing disguise and doom them all. 

as he falls through the veil, he thinks he sees color in Harry's eyes. Green? yes, they would be green, like Lily's. so that's what green is. it's been so long....


End file.
